Hamid Karzai: 'I have to be at the frontline of hardship and hard work'

In an exclusive interview with the Guardian in London , the president of Afghanistan explains why he still cannot take a holiday 12 years after taking power following the Taliban's fall. Watch the interview at
itv.com/news

It has been more than a decade since Hamid Karzai, whose job a US diplomat described as the most difficult in the world, took a holiday. But the man once hailed in the west as the suave, stylish embodiment of a new Afghanistan will be taking a long rest next year when he steps down as president of his fractured and impoverished country.

The Afghan constitution does not allow him to run in another election. Nato-led forces are also due to leave at the end of 2014, so the country will face the future without the leader and the foreign military presence that have defined much of the last decade.

"It is true that I haven't taken a holiday. I haven't noticed that I haven't taken a holiday," he told the Guardian and ITN in an exclusive interview in London, where he joked that the seven-hour flight to the UK was enough of a rest for now. "I'll be taking a long holiday a year from now.

"Of course I have felt the strain, of course one needs time off but it depends on whether one can afford it or not. I feel I cannot afford it, I feel I should continue to work for another year and then take a good leave and recuperate."

Karzai took power as a temporary leader after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, then won two successive presidential polls, in 2004 and 2009. Charming, clever, and fluent in Pashtu, Dari, English and Urdu, he made Esquire magazine's list of best-dressed men in 2004, and seemed at home anywhere from the remotest corners of Afghanistan to western capitals.

Tall and energetic, wrapped in a traditional Afghan chapan robe of woven blue, green and purple silk, and wearing a karakul cap of silver lamb's fleece, Karzai has a charisma and focus that cut through lingering jetlag and a cold. That personality has helped him build relationships with everyone from Prince Charles – whom he describes as a "very fine gentlemen" – to the senior council of Afghan clerics who recently ruled that women were "secondary" to men.

But there is a steely edge beneath the mannered exterior, and a strong nationalist sentiment, forged in part through years fighting the Soviets and then the Taliban, which brought him into conflict with western countries supporting his government financially and with troops.

He objected to much about the military presence as it escalated over the last decade, from night raids on Afghan homes to the creation of militia-like local police. Meanwhile, diplomats were also cooling on the relationship, and Karzai earned a reputation as erratic, emotional and prone to believing paranoid conspiracy theories, according to leaked US diplomatic cables.

Ties were perhaps irretrievably damaged during the 2009 presidential elections, which were marred by allegations of massive fraud, when Karzai felt western allies were trying to remove him from power. His critics now describe him as an obstructive protector of corrupt relatives and cronies, pointing to a brother in the southern city of Kandahar who, before he was assassinated, was alleged to have links to drug traffickers, and another who was a shareholder in a bank that nearly collapsed under $900m (£560m) of bad loans.

He is politically astute and has outmanoeuvred many of the western military commanders and ambassadors who traipsed through the imposing stone entrance of his palace fort over the last decade, helped perhaps by the fact that they came and went while he stayed put to watch many repeat their predecessors' mistakes.

Ryan Crocker, former US ambassador to Kabul, described Karzai's job as the most difficult in the world; it is certainly one of the most dangerous. All but one of the men who have ruled Afghanistan since the king was deposed in the 1970s has met an unnatural end. Several were killed by their successors.

Karzai has said he will not leave Afghanistan after he steps down, which means the question of who takes over could be one of life or death for him, although he says he is not worried. "I don't feel any danger at all, none. I am in my country, and safe and sound," he said.

The death toll from the years of war that have convulsed Afghanistan includes his father, his brother and many friends, colleagues and political allies and rivals. He has survived at least four assassination attempts since taking power, with security tightening each time.

Controls at the vast fortified palace where he lives are now so strict that visitors below ministerial rank are not even allowed to keep their pens, getting standard-issue ballpoints once they have checked in their belongings and passed several body searches.

Karzai rarely leaves the palace, and when he does he usually travels by aeroplane or helicopter, even across the capital. But he shrugged off the security constraints. "I have seen a lot more protection elsewhere," he said when asked about life as possibly the world's most heavily guarded head of state.

"That danger is always there in life. In Afghanistan it's there in one way, in the west in lots of other ways.

"Accidents are part of life. So no, I don't feel fear. Danger is there but I am not afraid of it."

He has fiercely protected his family's privacy, perhaps for security or perhaps haunted by the memories of a previous ruler penalised for setting a liberal example by encouraging his wife to wear western clothes and uncover her head.

His wife, a doctor who once worked in tough refugee camps in Pakistan, has not made a public appearance for years. A picture that allegedly showed his young son playing with a tame deer was spread across Afghan Twitter and Facebook pages within hours by people fascinated by the possible glimpse of the first family.

Karzai set diplomatic circles in Kabul buzzing last year when he named his first daughter Malalai, a popular Afghan name but also that of a heroine of the 19th-century fight against the British, with whom his government has had a strained relationship.

He fought the Soviets and then the Taliban while brothers were running restaurants in the US, but unlike many of the commanders who have supported him and held senior positions in his governments – from army chief of staff, provincial governors and ministers to first vice-president – he has no military power base.

He says his decade-long efforts have not been for personal gain – he reportedly earns $525 a month – but for the good of the country. "It's my country, we have to build it. Look how long it took you to build Britain into the good country that it is today. Someone did a great work there in the past, someone sacrificed, perhaps millions of people did hard work for centuries to bring you to where you are."

Afghanistan has to do the same, he said. "Every citizen of Afghanistan has to work hard. And I, as the president of Afghanistan, have to be at the frontline of that hardship and hard work."

Biography

1957 Born in Kandahar

1980s Works in Pakistan as fundraiser for the mujahideen in fight against Soviet occupation

July 1999 Father killed by Taliban

1999 Married obstetrician Zeenat Quraishi. They now have a son, six, and a daughter who is nearly one year old

Dec 2001 Afghan groups agree deal on interim government following US-led bombing of Taliban. Karzai sworn in as interim head of government

June 2002 The loya jirga (grand council) elects Karzai as interim head of state